United States and Japan teams up to tackle disaster

Having spent a number of years in the United States Marines, I know a little about teamwork and nothing feeds the soul than to stand next to someone completely different than you but so similar and looking at the job to accomplish or complete knowing that you are doing it together as one.  Out of all of the stories that have been published or that will be published about the disaster in Japan this one gives me the greatest of hope.

Eric Talmadge and Mari Yamaguchi wrote this for the Associated Press titled Japan official: Disasters overwhelmed government and one of the most touching points was in the very beginning when it reported that “the Japanese government acknowledged Friday that it was overwhelmed by the scale of last week's twin natural disasters, slowing the response to the nuclear crisis that was triggered by the earthquake and tsunami that left at least 10,000 people dead.  The admission came as Japan welcomed U.S. help in stabilizing its overheated, radiation-leaking nuclear complex, and reclassified the rating of the nuclear accident from Level 4 to Level 5 on a seven-level international scale, putting it on a par with the 1979 Three Mile Island accident.”  First of all it must be clear that for Japan to make this admission means that they are more concerned about their people than their image.  That is something that other country leaders should take a lesson from.  The U.S. standing side by side with Japan means more in the long run than many will probably allow themselves to see which is unfortunate.  Showing the Japanese people that America will always be there to lend a hand means that finally we may just obtain a true trust between two nations with so much in common.

The only thing that may be able to derail this good will may be the constant comparison of cable and mainstream news to Three Mile Island and Chernobyl.  While I can understand that by comparison we are able to get our heads better around any disaster but to constantly use the results of the compared to the current may only confuse those who are listening.  There were a mentioned of the Japanese reactors having several backups and several backups also a part of those compared to it but what was not mentioned was that the Japanese reactor was hit by two natural disasters at the same time, was that the same at those places being compared.  Compare apples to apples and oranges to oranges but to not mix the two.  Just a thought I could be wrong.